The present invention relates generally to a system including a diagnosis server for collaboration with electronic noses, and to a mobile diagnosis unit for collaboration with the diagnosis server. The invention relates further to a diagnosis method for collaborating using electronic noses.
The field of electronic noses is becoming one of the more interesting technologies from a research and investment point of view. Electronic noses (in short: e-nose) keep airports and, for instance, the space station, safe by noticing the tiniest amounts of dangerous chemicals. They can tell the difference between things like different beverages that taste the same, bad apples and good ones, cancer cells and normal cells, even different qualities of wine may be detectable by electronic noses. All of them use a number of sensors, but even the more sophisticated ones have no more than eight sensors simultaneously active. Besides, due to higher volume and reduced prices, more units will be sold and used.
Price and physical volume are key issues when e-noses are used in smart devices, like smart mobile phones, and the like.
In most cases, software analyzes the patterns of each sensor to determine what the smell is, but the software is only able to elaborate a static set of input values, the one provided by the sensors, and in a pre-defined range. Every time a sensor is not able to report a value, or the combination of sensors values is out of this pre-defined range, the e-nose is not able to provide an answer. For these reasons, e-noses are small in number and mainly used in big organizations like hospitals or universities. Earlier prototypes of low price e-noses to be embedded in personal devices are showing less effectiveness in the sense that they are equipped with a lower number of sensors and each sensor has a narrower range of appliance.
There is a growing need for more advanced e-nose based diagnosis devices with more sophisticated methods, also for lower cost e-noses, which may have a limited measurement range.